One of the skills that characterizes great business data analysts is the ability to communicate practical implications of quantitative analyses to any kind of audience member. Even the most sophisticated statistical analyses are not useful to a business if they do not lead to actionable advice, or if the answers to those business questions are not conveyed in a way that non-technical people can understand.
In this course you will learn how to become a master at communicating business-relevant implications of data analyses. By the end, you will know how to structure your data analysis projects to ensure the fruits of your hard labor yield results for your stakeholders. You will also know how to streamline your analyses and highlight their implications efficiently using visualizations in Tableau, the most popular visualization program in the business world. Using other Tableau features, you will be able to make effective visualizations that harness the human brain’s innate perceptual and cognitive tendencies to convey conclusions directly and clearly. Finally, you will be practiced in designing and persuasively presenting business “data stories” that use these visualizations, capitalizing on business-tested methods and design principles.

From the lesson

Data Visualization with Tableau

Welcome to week 2! This week you'll install Tableau Desktop to learn how visualizing data helps you figure out what your data mean efficiently, and in the process of doing so, helps you narrow in on what factors you should take into consideration in your statistical models or predictive algorithms. Over the next two weeks, we’re going to learn how to use Tableau to implement this type of visualization and to help you find, and communicate, answers to business questions, as well as work with the Tableau functions that all data analysts should be familiar with. You will learn to install Tableau Desktop and learn to use the program by working with two data sets. In addition, through a series of practice exercises, you will use a data set to do example analyses and to answer specific sample questions about salaries for certain data-related jobs across the United State. Then for graded exercises, you will use a different data set to work out analyses and questions that will require you to directly apply the Tableau skills you have acquired through practice. <p>By the end of this week, you will be able to: <ul><li>Create the most important graphs used in business analysis and transform data in Tableau </li></ul><p>Once you have watched the "Why Tableau" video, review the "Written Instructions to install Tableau Desktop" and install the software. Remember to refer back to the Salary Data Set and to the Dognition Data Set resources posted on the course site this week. You will also complete a graded quiz at the end of the week. <p>As always, if you have any questions, post them to the <b>Discussions</b>.<p>To get started, please begin with the video “Use Data Visualization to Drive Your Analysis" and then review the "Written Instructions to install Tableau Desktop.<p>I hope you enjoy this week's materials!